The 74 Year Old Using Advanced Excel Skills to Make Art

Tatsuo Horiuchi is a 73 year old Japanese man who has discovered how to do something rather incredible. He was soon reaching the retirement age and was in search of a hobby. He had been interested in graphic design for some time but had never done anything about it. As he was looking for graphic design software he noticed that computers usually come pre-installed with Microsoft Office. He first tried using word but “it wasn’t functional enough” for what he wanted to do. So, Excel was the obvious choice for him because he figured he could create art with it and was much cheaper than buying software.

Horiuchi with some of his work

He uses auto shapes, a tool in Excel that lets users colour and connect customisable shapes. Tatsuo builds massively complex images. He says “I never used Excel at work, but I saw other people making pretty graphs and thought, I could probably draw with that. Graphics software is expensive but Excel comes pre-installed in most computers, and it has more functions and is easier to use than Microsoft Paint.” He told PC Online.

“Snow Okura”

He first gained attention back in 2006 when he entered an Excel Artist Contest. His work was far-superior than the other entries, blowing the judges away and therefore earning him first place. He has now gone on to create work which has been made into a giant book and printed on large canvases which is now displayed in his local museum – Gunma Museum of Art.